Recent Posts

Monday, June 30, 2008

filthy rich

Sometimes I feel like I'm rolling in data. There's so much data to analyze. What a wealth of information. kind of crazy.

Sunny days

This weekend was warm! Yay for seattle sun.

Friday, June 27, 2008

The new face of ugly

This is what happens when people take pictures of you eating; it causes deformities! Happy gorgeous Friday friendly people!

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Creperie

Last weekend we finally went to the cute little crepe place near our house, La Cote. Truthfully, we ended up there because the ice cream sundae place had just closed. But what a find! Evan had a sweet lemon crepe. I had a hazelnut crepe with ice cream. We both decided we have to go back for their savory crepes which sounded like neatly packaged perfection.

The good things in life

I love my ervy. Im so lucky to have him!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Multimedia message

Today was such a crappy day.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Tastea

One of my collaborators introduced me to a new tea place, Remedy teas in capital hill. They have over 150 teas, and I got to try several new puerhs including a really delicious raw pu. I enjoyed my experience there so much that I brought evan there on sunday for tea and some amazing sandwiches and cookies. One sandwich had apple butter and CHEESE! And it was crazy good. We had chocolate-pepper cookies and rosemary cornmeal cookies... So good!

Pastafarians

Flying spaghetti monster at the Fremont solstice parade.

Sleepy head Nikko

The last one in bed on a Saturday ;-)

Friday, June 20, 2008

Milk



Wednesday evening Evan and I went to a screening of Milk - Gus Van Sant's new movie on the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay supervisor of San Francisco.

First of all, it was an amazing film, and I encourage everyone to see it, especially if you don't know his story. The story itself is very topical; Milk ran on a platform of hope and change, not unlike Obama. And, with the controversial legalization of same-sex marriage in California, gay rights are on America's mind right now - spurring present day Anita Bryants to shake their heads disapproval. (random note: I just stumbled across Conservapedia... a conservative written wikipedia?)

The movie was a tad long for my tastes (2 hrs) - for such an intense story (although they may cut/add footage before it actually hits theaters), but the character details/personalities were really well done. Sean Penn was AMAZING, and by the end of the movie I was choking back tears while others in the theater were definitely crying... I also really appreciated the performances/characters played by Emile Hirsch and James Franco.

A comment on screenings
This was the first time I have been to a screening of a movie where they're polling to find out people's reactions to the movie with an eye towards what might be changed. The staff went around polling people before the movie to see how much we knew about the story of Harvey Milk, what was drawing us to the film (the actors? the story?), and how excited we were to see the film. Evan and I were asked to stay after the movie with a group of 20 or so others to comment more specifically on the film. Their criteria for choosing us was based on our answers to one question: "How excited are you, on a scale from 1 to 10, to see this movie?" I immediately asked what the scale endpoints (anchors) were, but the lady acted as though it was pretty self-explanatory. So I said 6 and ev said 7. I guess that was low compared to the rest of the crowd... but they could have had different anchors (i.e., 1 could have been "OMG get me out of here" or "Not that excited"), different social comparisons (am I excited compared to most people or compared across all movies I want to see?). The session afterwards felt like a replication of Asch's study. The interviewer would ask, "How many people rated this film as 'excellent'? (she'd count)Ok, so only one of you didn't rate it as 'excellent'" And then she'd ask people to explain themselves. It just didn't feel like a very valid way of assessing reactions.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Cravin' da herbs

I've been itching to fill out my herb garden. Yesterday after busing home, i went to City People ( the closest plant nursery). I ended up leaving with 10 new plants! I got sage, lavender, hyssop, catnip, peppermint, chives, garlic chives, epazote, and 2 kinds of hops(necessary for making beer). Everything except the hops went into large pots.

Monday, June 16, 2008

I know what the dandelion feels... but I'll keep diggin' 'em!



This is the tip of a dandelion fork/digger

I got one after seeing my neighbor use it so successfully. Yesterday, the fork and my arm had an argument, and the dandelion digger won :(.

I have to say, I love it when I do stupid things. I went out to the garage to grab the digger to attack some weeds in the back yard. On my way out of the garage, I remembered I wanted to start a pot of chives. So I grabbed a pot in one hand, and had the digger in the other hand. And when I passed my bag of unopened potting soil, it seemed like a great idea to use this nice sharp forky tool to open the bag up. Course it went through the bag a bit too easily and continued on up my arm digging two trails from my elbow to my wrist - with the crowning glory being where the right prong sliced into where it settled.... blech. Luckily evan was outside, so I called him to help me sanitize and bandage it as I kept the cut pinched closed.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Berries

Some of my strawberry plants. I planted 6 of these when they were tiny. Now they are so big i had to move one out to the front yard. I need to move more of them as it is still over crowded. These are QUINULTstrawberry plants. I also have wild coastal and woodland strawberry plants. They are all really happy in my yard. Something ate 2 big strawberries from a plant in the front yard. I suspect that squirrels are the culprits.

Monday, June 09, 2008

Edible gardening

For those of you who remember my garden in redwood city, i've started growing produce in a way similar to what i did then. You can see my tomato plant peeking out from its wall of water (these were helpful in california, but completely necessary up here in seattle). Instead of basil growing around the periphery, i'm growing lettuces.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Pretty flowers!

I bought 2 more peonies to plant in my garden and i cut a bloom to bring in. ISNT it gorgeous?!

Friday, June 06, 2008

Teaching joys

One of the best things about being a ta for advanced stats is the students. They are highly motivated to learn and generally really wonderful people. I got to be many of these students' ta over the past two quarters (it's a two quarter series). Today was the last day i had them in section and one of my students gave me this card. It honestly makes me so happy!

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Yumzor

Mm it's corn bread time!